Team Forrest blog: Luke Zachrich on episode No. 5 of "TUF7"

The weeks are flying by, and now episode No. 5 is a thing of the past.

The show started off by recapping Tim Credeur and Matthew “Chipper” Riddle’s fight and then went to show Tim being the classy guy he is by giving Matthew the respect he deserved for a great fight the two had just put on. Tim won $10,000 for winning that fight by armbar and thought it would be a great gesture to buy Matthew the Xbox he had been talking about the whole time we were on the show. I just spoke with Tim a few days ago, but I forgot to ask if he had came through with the Xbox.

After the fight recap, they show a scene from Team Rampage’s van in which Jeremy May makes a comment to Matthew about not defending the armbar and still getting an Xbox. This leads to the world being able to see what a loser Jeremy is. First, he locks the door on the guys who are out in the hot tub then goes on to write “Jermey The BAMF May lives here” on the ceiling. They made this out to look like he wrote on the ceiling right after he locked the door, but this happened on separate occasions.

The “The BAMF” then starts throwing stuff at Jesse Taylor. You can tell by watching the expressions on everyone’s faces every time they show a clip of Jeremy that he isn’t liked by anyone. Unfortunately, there was always some stupid crap like this that “The BAMF” was pulling. I’m sure there will be plenty more to see in weeks to come.

Micheal Bisping comes into train with Team Rampage. I thought this was cool, and I wish I had gotten the opportunity to train with him. Our coach, Forrest Griffin, did bring in a past “TUF” champion, but it hasn’t been shown yet, so I can’t really spoil anything. I think it was great for both coaches to bring in guys like this. These guys and Forrest himself have all been through what we were a part of at that time, and it was very inspirational to have these guys in the same gym as all of us. They’ve achieved what we were all trying to accomplish, and to hear them talk of there experiences gave everyone a boost.

Back at Team Rampage’s practice, Jeremy talks about how bad he is. He claims that no one on my team would stand with him. Matthew is standing by him and says Matt Brown would stand with him, and Jeremy says he would beat Matt’s ass.

Instantly we get to see a little montage of interviews and training clips of Matt. Matt and I are both members of Team Jorge Gurgel based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, so I’ve been training with him for some time now. This episode showed the world what my camp and I already know: Matt Brown is a bad ass. The guy was born with a natural toughness that most fighters would kill to be born with. He trains harder, longer and more intense than most professional athletes out there and will fight anyone they put in front of him. Jesse Taylor said it right: “He’s one tough, intense, son of a bitch.”

Once we got a little view of what kind of person Matt is, we go to the house to see Jeremy putting lime juice in his dip. You can see the look of disbelief on everyone’s faces, and you could just tell something was going to happen. Throughout all the episodes, we’ve seen Jeremy talking in the confessionals like he’s one of the baddest dudes on the planet, but his confidence seemed to fall off the face of the earth when Matt calls him out. Matt being picked to fight Jeremy was a bittersweet moment for me. I had been begging to able to fight Jeremy up to this point, but if it wasn’t going to be me, I was happy that a good friend of mine was going to have the chance to step into the octagon with him.

Going into the fight picks, I’m sure everyone thought this would be Matt vs. Jeremy, but like I’ve said in my past blogs, Coach Griffin had last say in who would be fighting and when they would fight. This week he chose Dante Rivera to fight Brandon Sene. Dante came into the house being one of the more experienced guys. He holds pretty much every belt on the East Coast and is one of Ricardo Almeida’s top students. Brandon had way less experience but does train with a good team in Gracie Tampa.

This fight went to a three-round decision. There was a lot of controversy with the decision from Team Rampage. Brandon put up a good fight against a seasoned veteran. As far as the controversy goes, though, I feel there was no question that Dante won the fight. He controlled where the fight took place and controlled positions. Brandon did what he could and did stay active, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough to win on the scorecards.

After the fight they show Rampage Jackson going on, well, a rampage. At this point his team is down 3-0 and is obviously frustrated. Team Forrest still has control, and next week, we get to see Matt Brown vs. Jeremy May.

Next week I’ll have more information on the the saga, but I can assure you all of one thing: win or lose, Jeremy May is a douche bag.

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